Although the nation's richest African American with a net worth of $5 billion isn't known by many, Robert F. Smith made headlines recently when he surprised this year's Morehouse College graduates by paying off their student loans. The announcement was made at Smith's commencement address at the historical college in Atlanta last weekend, where his gift has been estimated to be between $20 to $40 million.
Earlier this month, the seldom seen Smith spoke at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills where he claimed that educational and economic opportunities for African Americans had narrowed since his own upbringing in the 1960s, at a time when he and other children were bused to recently desegrated schools in the Denver area.
“We have doctors. We have lawyers. We have politicians. We have investors, all because we had the opportunity to get into a great public school," Smith said of his fellow scholars in the neighborhood, while noting how today's African-American communities are as segregated as they were before the civil rights movement.
During the discussion, the investor and Vista Equity Partners founder emphasized that segregation subjects communities to "economic underdevelopment" and doesn't allow them to fully participate in the economy, calling for companies to invest in the problem by offering internships to underprivileged students who may not be aware of the opportunities created by the tech revolution.
Additionally, he recalls how being the son of two principals with doctorate degrees helped establish his foundation of success at an early age, thus providing him the resources and opportunity to sustain generational wealth for his own children who will one day carry on tradition.
Source: instagram.com
